More To Remembrance Than Living In The Past
by thesilversun
Summary: Memories and thoughts can both be tricky things, ready to ambush you at awkward moments when you least expect it. Peter deals with things by not actually dealing with it at all and wonders what Nightingale does. Unbeta'd. Companion piece to At The Going Down Of The Sun. This one is Peter POV, the other was Nightingale's.


Title: More To Remembrance Than Living In The Past.

Fandom: Rivers of London

Characters: Nightingale, Peter.

Rating: G

Word count: 2500

Warning/Spoilers: Spoiler for Broken Homes.

A/N. Unbeta'd. Companion piece to At The Going Down Of The Sun. This one is Peter POV, the other was Nighitngale's.

There had been something off about Nightingale all day. The problem was that I couldn't figure out what it was. The case that we'd just closed wasn't exactly the most thrilling or taxing we'd ever dealt with. Not that I was complaining, after the last few months simple was good. It had been a small time hustler selling what he claimed to be guaranteed love potions. They weren't. They weren't even magical. He did however have a little bit of glamour about him which made the drunk clubbers he sold it to even more willing to part with their hard earned cash.

Which was why we'd spent the morning chasing down Johnny Eros, which was almost certainly not his real name. He'd probably got some Fey somewhere in his ancestry, but it wasn't enough that the current Fey population were interested in dealing with him. Which was why we'd ended up with it. We'd eventually caught him and Nightingale had given him one of his 'If I ever hear about you doing anything like this again, it will be the worse for you' talks. It would have been enough to scare me off, but I suspected that in a few months Johnny would be back to his old ways.

There wasn't much else we could do. I did wonder if we could get him under the trades and descriptions act. But as both he and Nightingale pointed out a judge would laugh it out of court and no jury would believe the customers truly thought they were buying something magical. We couldn't even do him for selling food without a licence as Johnny's 'love potion number nine' as he called it, was meant to be worn like a perfume rather than drunk. And annoyingly he actually had a license sell that, as that's what his usual stall in Peckham Market sold. All he was doing at the clubs was selling excess stock, honest gov. Yeah, right.

Even with not being able to do more than warn our Del Boy wannabe off from wheeler-dealering ways for a while, I doubted it that was what had put Nightingale in such a weird mood. I wasn't even sure that it was a mood. He just seemed distracted, like his mind was elsewhere. And it was starting to bug me that I couldn't figure it out. I suppose I could have asked him outright, but that rarely got me a completely honest answer lately or perhap ever, if I was in a cynical mood.

There had been no sign of Lesley or the Faceless Man since what happened at the Sky Garden and with Varvara gone back to somewhere in Europe, it had actually been pretty quiet of late. I suspected that Nightingale knew exactly where Varvara had gone, and that he'd probably given her instructions that if she were ever to come back then it would definitely be the worse and last decision she would ever make.

With nothing much else to do for a change we'd settled in for a quiet Sunday evening. Molly had just cleared away the things for afternoon tea. Sunday afternoon from three until four was always afternoon tea, complete with a china tea set, little triangular sandwiches and a choice of cakes. I suspected that she had served this in the same way since the turn of the century. The last century that is. It was nice, in a weirdly old fashioned way. Not that I always stayed to it. Sometimes I was working and sometimes I went round to see my Mum and Dad, as it really was necessary to get out the Folly and back to the normal world for a while.

Don't get me wrong, I liked living there. My rooms over the coach house were like having a place of my own and it was far better than what I could get on a PCs salary in London. There was reason I slept at the station house before working with Nightingale and why most young coppers my age and rank did. It was called being skint, but not wanting to still be living with your Mum and Dad when you were well into your twenties. All that aside having company which wasn't your hundred and thirteen year old boss or his Gothic Lolita housekeeper who was older still and who had once tried to eat me was still sometimes needed. Which was why I missed Lesley.

I still hadn't made up my mind which hurt worse, the fact that she'd thrown her lot in with Faceless or that I hadn't seen it. What I didn't get then and still didn't was that Nightingale hadn't seen it either. Surely there had to be something in how well Lesley had been progressing that should have given him a hint that she was getting double the magic tuition that I was. Not that I suspected Nightingale of anything, he'd seemed really cut up about it. I suspected that he was beating himself up enough about not suspecting anything or seeing Faceless' signare in the background of Lesley's formae, as he'd done with the guy's other apprentices.

I like to think that I'm a lot more observant than I think Nightingale gives me credit for, but today I wasn't getting even a hint. So after trying to look like I wasn't staring I came to the conclusion that even if he didn't tell me what was up I wasn't any worse off for it. I'd just about decided what I was going to say when he got up and said, "I will see you later, Peter. I don't think there is any pressing work that needs attending to, however if you wish you can read through the next section of Brunn's Magic of Central Europe."

"Going anywhere interesting?" I asked hoping that I might get an answer that didn't leave me with half a dozen more questions than I'd had before. Plus anything was better than reading a book which I not so secret suspected would end with the author deciding Germany magic was superior to any other. Maybe the author had been leant on a bit to come to that conclusion, it being written in the Thirties and published in Berlin, but I got the feeling Brunn had been cheering along with the rest of them.

"The Cenotaph."

I just about avoided doing a goldfish impression as my brain kicked in to gear. I'm not sure how it had escaped my attention that it was Remembrance Sunday. I blame it on the fact that the Eleventh had actually fallen mid week and I'd done the two minutes silence then. All the same it made me feel kind of bad for not thinking about how Nightingale must feel around this time of year. He'd not told me much about what he did in the Second World War, but what had said left me in little doubt that it had been pretty traumatic for him. So it was more the thought that I should do something than any overwhelming desire to leave the nice warm Folly and go stand on a blustery street in the rain, that prompted me to say, "I could come with you."

Surprised, but apparently pleased Nightingale turned to me and said, "I would like that, Peter. Thank you."

During the week Whitehall would have been bustling with politicians, diplomats and their various hangers on. On a damp Sunday afternoon it was about as deserted as this area of London got. Which wasn't completely empty, but the people that there where there were just hurrying through on their way to somewhere else and really weren't interested in stopping and passing the time of day. Pulling up the collar on my coat I was inclined to agree with them.

"I can wait here, if you want?" I said. Nightingale looked so sombre standing there holding the wreath I didn't feel like I should intrude further. Not that it was intruding as such. It was a public place and I had as much rights to pay my respects as anybody in the police force to our fallen colleagues of long ago. It was long ago for Nightingale, but they had been the people he'd worked with and even been friends with. Compared to that I felt like I was an imposter somehow.

Nightingale nodded and moved away from me. I felt kind of bad about letting him do it alone. He'd looked relieved though, so I let him go. Not wanting to look like I was staring at him again, I spent a couple of minutes reading a plaque on one of trees. It wasn't particularly interesting, just a little bit of history detailing the who, why and when of the planting of the beech trees that ran down Whitehall. It might come in hand if I was watching Pointless, but probably not any when else.

I wasn't sure how long he was intending to stay, so after reading the plaque, looking at the buildings and trying to work out which was the oldest, I watched him, looking for any sign that he was ready to leave. There wasn't. What he looked was lonely. Standing there head bowed, the wreath still in his hands, in front of the Cenotaph. He didn't seem to have moved at all or have any intention of doing so any time soon. So I waited. It didn't feel right to rush him and I didn't have anywhere else that I needed to be. Although I did wish that I'd thought to take some gloves or a hat with me. November in London isn't the warmest of places.

I wondered what sort of thoughts were going through his head. Was he thinking of those who had died in the war? Or of the war itself? Maybe he was thinking of those like him who had survived. Or about how there were so few veterans of the war left these days. The last, I found, was oddly the most upsetting. How hard was it for him today when everything was about remembering? I wondered. It was history, something in school books and films, to me. He'd lived it, fought in it and had friends hurt and killed in it. Give a few more years and even those that had survived would be dead too.

For somebody who was a hundred and thirteen or so he didn't do so badly with the modern world. He was a bit old fashioned about things sometimes and new technology wasn't really his thing. But he wasn't really any worse at it than my Mum and Dad, and he more than half a century on them. He was willing to learn about things as long as he could see a use for them and never immediately dismissed anything new simply for being new. That surprised me sometimes, until I considered the time in which he grew up. Those years where everything that we take for granted now was bright and new and shiny. Aeroplanes, cinema, record players, telephones, electric lighting. He'd been born when Queen Victoria was still on the throne, but by the time he was twenty planes and airships were across the Atlantic.

Technology was getting faster and smaller, but it was all improvements on what had preceded it. What had it been like to see the first aeroplane? Or to be in the crowd when they saw the first film? There were moments, just occasional little glimpses of the person he'd been before decades of wars and dealing with crime had worn him down. I thought he must have had a wicked sense of humour back in the day - why else did he know and use that silly rain cloud spell?

It was odd to think that the people who'd known him during the war would have been looking at the same face I saw now. I'd wondered about why he'd stopped aging in reverse and when, and although he hadn't mentioned it I think he probably had as well. I mean why wouldn't he? Surely he must worry that it might start again, that he might end up going back to being a kid or that he'd start ageing normally again. Or what if he suddenly aged back to how old he really was? Was that survivable? I shivered and didn't even try to blame it on the cold.

I'd been thinking a lot about Nightingale and his history lately. It helped me not think about other things. Things that still hurt too much to think about. Especially when those thoughts inevitably turned all the possible worst case scenarios that might happen the next time I saw her. Lesley might have tasered me in the back, but I wasn't sure I could do anything against her, not when it came down to it, not even if it was my life depended on it. So I was dealing with it by not thinking about it. Maybe not the best plan, but for now it was working and I was starting not to feel like I'd had my heart ripped out and stamped on.

Luckily for me the rain which had held off so far started to fall again and stopped me from dwelling on it any more than I had. Big, fat drops splashed down into the puddles, slow at first and then faster and faster, until I knew I was going to end up soaked even I stayed under the tree. Nightingale seemed not to have noticed the downpour at all, so I hurried back to the Jag and took an umbrella from the boot. It didn't seem right to shelter in the car and let him get soaked. I knew Nightingale kept one in there so if we did end up at a crime scene in the rain at least one of us would be staying dry. I'll give you a hint. It was never me.

He still seemed oblivious to what was going on as I walked over to him and held it over him. It was more of a thoughtful gesture by this point as his suit was already wet and his hair plastered flat on his head. I was glad in a way that it was raining. I wasn't sure I could handle finding out Nightingale had been crying without attempting to say something that would end up being massively awkward for us both.

When all he'd done was give the umbrella and me a confused look, I said, "I said I didn't mind waiting."

"Thank you," he replied, his gaze already moving back to the piles of wreaths clustered about the foot of the memorial. "I shan't be much longer."

And that was it really. You could remember the past, but you couldn't live in it. Life carried on regardless whether you were a willing participant in where it took you or not. You just had to get on and live it. That was what Nightingale had done, and it was what I'd doing the Sky Garden.

I moved a little closer to him, holding the umbrella over us both. Because there was nothing that said you had to do it alone.


End file.
